8.07.2008

Darkness Before Dawn

What follows is my summary of the thesis of Richard Swenson's book, Hurtling Toward Oblivion. Quite convincing, I might add.

The exponential growth of profusion (more of everything) through irreversible progress has a dark side: the accompanying explosion of negatives, which,when they reach critical mass, will bring about the collapse of the world system with commensurately exponential speed.

4 comments:

It doesn't matter how much good humanity can muster with all her progress if the negatives reach a lethal threshold.

Think of it this way: You got 10 voicemail messages on your phone this morning. One informs you that you've just won one million dollars, another tells you that you've just gotten in to Harvard Law School with a full scholarship, and so the good news rolls, until you get to the last message, from the doctor's office, informing you that the aching you've been experiencing is an aggressive form of leukemia.

All that goodness negated by a small amount of evil. That's what I mean by critical mass, the lethal threshold.

Yes, I believe that God's Good will ultimately triumph, but only after the situation gets so desperate that the world is beyond hope of salvation through humanity's channels of innovation, obfuscation, negotiation, or any other human-initiated -ation.

My first comment doesn't contradict anything you have said. I was referring to the good God brings out of evil. As you rightly point out, the Devil can negate a host of good with only a little evil. In the end, however, God's ability to bring good out of evil will trump this apparent advantage. Only in this sense will good be growing faster than evil.

Your perspective explains why the world is rapidly self-destructing. You conclude that our world is a hopeless wreck, and I agree. However, I violently dissagree with the common corollary: building up anything in this world isn't worth the remaining time.

Too many Adventists embrace this corollary, leading to short sighted and shoddy work in everything from construction to finance. This mistaken view is a shame, because our theology is actually very practical and holistic.

I oppose any "spiritual" solution to humanity's ills that is also short sighted, one sided, and purely palliative. Wherever we preach the gospel from the pulpit, we should follow up with trowls, hoes, scapels, and black boards.